You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “The intelligence gap tells you when to block on social media”.
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “The intelligence gap tells you when to block on social media”.
Some trolls are nothing more than a waste of a good eye-roll.
I think I’d enjoy a platform moderated by Maggie Smith. Some days, I’m just too tired to channel my inner Maggie and end up sounding like Dorothy from Oz scolding the wizard, instead of a bigger wizard in charge of the fleet of flying monkeys, if you catch my drift. I could use a fleet of flying monkeys, you know.
I’ve mostly reached the same conclusion (my old cardinal rule in The Art of the Flamewar being, “He who stops to profanity first, loses”), but since the goal of the troll is to silence others, it does feel like giving them satisfaction. I have to remember that peace is a gift we claim for ourselves when we walk away, rather than delivering the coup de grâce they deserve.
Friends have recently pointed out to me that maybe I give some people too much benefit of the doubt, therefore too much time and patience in debate. Is it that I am loathe to believe they’re hopeless, or too quick to blame myself for an inability to persuade through logic and rhetoric?
I have struggled with that question a lot, lately. If it’s just ego and stubbornness, I’m wasting a lot of time online.
We probably need to jump very quickly to labelling someone a troll. If their first message isn’t courteous, then I think that pretty much clinches it: they’re wanting to stir. I always feel that they’re there to enter into protracted debates and not respond to obvious points—they get their buzz from watching us get upset. Silence probably frustrates them more, though they might get some joy from knowing they were blocked.
I used to give everyone the benefit of the doubt but you and I are better schooled on netiquette and remember how things once were. We probably need to believe some are hopeless, just as we might in real (offline) life with certain folks.